Exceptionally low daily energy expenditure in the bamboo-eating giant panda

Yonggang Nie; John R Speakman; Qi Wu; Chenglin Zhang; Yibo Hu; Maohua Xia; Li Yan; Catherine Hambly; Lu Wang; Wei Wei; Jinguo Zhang; Fuwen Wei

doi:10.1126/science.aab2413

Exceptionally low daily energy expenditure in the bamboo-eating giant panda

Yonggang Nie, John R Speakman, Qi Wu, Chenglin Zhang, Yibo Hu, Maohua Xia, Li Yan, Catherine Hambly, Lu Wang, Wei Wei, Jinguo Zhang, Fuwen Wei^* (Corresponding Author)

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

141 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The carnivoran giant panda has a specialized bamboo diet, to which its alimentary tract is poorly adapted. Measurements of daily energy expenditure across five captive and three wild pandas averaged 5.2 megajoules (MJ)/day, only 37.7% of the predicted value (13.8 MJ/day). For the wild pandas, the mean was 6.2 MJ/day, or 45% of the mammalian expectation. Pandas achieve this exceptionally low expenditure in part by reduced sizes of several vital organs and low physical activity. In addition, circulating levels of thyroid hormones thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3) averaged 46.9 and 64%, respectively, of the levels expected for a eutherian mammal of comparable size. A giant panda-unique mutation in the DUOX2 gene, critical for thyroid hormone synthesis, might explain these low thyroid hormone levels. A combination of morphological, behavioral, physiological, and genetic adaptations, leading to low energy expenditure, likely enables giant pandas to survive on a bamboo diet.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	171-174
Number of pages	4
Journal	Science
Volume	349
Issue number	6244
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aab2413
Publication status	Published - 10 Jul 2015

Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2015, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Acknowledgments: We thank X. Wang, Y. Jin, W. Zhou, T. Pu, X. Wang, L. Shan, S. Ma, W. Du, Z. Tan, M. Wang, X. Zheng, H. Han, D. Wang, and T. Ma for help with the data collection and P. Thompson for technical assistance with the isotope analysis. We also thank the Foping Nature Reserve and Beijing Zoo for their assistance on this study. This work was supported jointly and equally by the Key Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 31230011) and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant XDB13030000). The thermal image camera used for the dairy cow images was on loan from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council equipment loan pool. The physiological and other data are presented in the supplementary materials. The genetic data have been deposited in the National Center for Biotechnology Information database with accession number KT000656.

Keywords

Animals
Base Sequence
Body Temperature
Cattle
Chromosomes, Human, Pair 15
Diet
Dogs
Eating
Energy Metabolism
Gastrointestinal Tract
Genetic Variation
Humans
Mice
Molecular Sequence Data
Motor Activity
NADPH Oxidase
Organ Size
Sasa
Thyroxine
Triiodothyronine
Ursidae

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10.1126/science.aab2413Licence: Unspecified

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2015/07/08/349.6244.171.DC1Licence: Unspecified

John Speakman
- Biological Sciences, Aberdeen Centre For Environmental Sustainability - Chair in Zoology
- Energetics Research Group
Person: Academic

Cite this

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title = "Exceptionally low daily energy expenditure in the bamboo-eating giant panda",

abstract = "The carnivoran giant panda has a specialized bamboo diet, to which its alimentary tract is poorly adapted. Measurements of daily energy expenditure across five captive and three wild pandas averaged 5.2 megajoules (MJ)/day, only 37.7% of the predicted value (13.8 MJ/day). For the wild pandas, the mean was 6.2 MJ/day, or 45% of the mammalian expectation. Pandas achieve this exceptionally low expenditure in part by reduced sizes of several vital organs and low physical activity. In addition, circulating levels of thyroid hormones thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3) averaged 46.9 and 64%, respectively, of the levels expected for a eutherian mammal of comparable size. A giant panda-unique mutation in the DUOX2 gene, critical for thyroid hormone synthesis, might explain these low thyroid hormone levels. A combination of morphological, behavioral, physiological, and genetic adaptations, leading to low energy expenditure, likely enables giant pandas to survive on a bamboo diet.",

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author = "Yonggang Nie and Speakman, {John R} and Qi Wu and Chenglin Zhang and Yibo Hu and Maohua Xia and Li Yan and Catherine Hambly and Lu Wang and Wei Wei and Jinguo Zhang and Fuwen Wei",

note = "Copyright {\textcopyright} 2015, American Association for the Advancement of Science. Acknowledgments: We thank X. Wang, Y. Jin, W. Zhou, T. Pu, X. Wang, L. Shan, S. Ma, W. Du, Z. Tan, M. Wang, X. Zheng, H. Han, D. Wang, and T. Ma for help with the data collection and P. Thompson for technical assistance with the isotope analysis. We also thank the Foping Nature Reserve and Beijing Zoo for their assistance on this study. This work was supported jointly and equally by the Key Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 31230011) and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant XDB13030000). The thermal image camera used for the dairy cow images was on loan from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council equipment loan pool. The physiological and other data are presented in the supplementary materials. The genetic data have been deposited in the National Center for Biotechnology Information database with accession number KT000656.",

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AU - Hambly, Catherine

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AU - Wei, Wei

AU - Zhang, Jinguo

AU - Wei, Fuwen

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N2 - The carnivoran giant panda has a specialized bamboo diet, to which its alimentary tract is poorly adapted. Measurements of daily energy expenditure across five captive and three wild pandas averaged 5.2 megajoules (MJ)/day, only 37.7% of the predicted value (13.8 MJ/day). For the wild pandas, the mean was 6.2 MJ/day, or 45% of the mammalian expectation. Pandas achieve this exceptionally low expenditure in part by reduced sizes of several vital organs and low physical activity. In addition, circulating levels of thyroid hormones thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3) averaged 46.9 and 64%, respectively, of the levels expected for a eutherian mammal of comparable size. A giant panda-unique mutation in the DUOX2 gene, critical for thyroid hormone synthesis, might explain these low thyroid hormone levels. A combination of morphological, behavioral, physiological, and genetic adaptations, leading to low energy expenditure, likely enables giant pandas to survive on a bamboo diet.

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JF - Science

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Exceptionally low daily energy expenditure in the bamboo-eating giant panda

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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John Speakman

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